Sunday, April 22, 2012

Earth Day

Today is:
My oldest daughter's sixteenth birthday! And Earth Day! I'm posting early this week because tomorrow I'm going on my younger daughter's field trip. We're going to the courthouse to watch a trial. I'm excited - I've never seen an actual trial before.

Thought for the Week:
I know we've all heard countless ways to be greener, but  the following tips I found on living.msn.com were new to me and I thought I'd share them in honor of Earth Day...

Foods actually last longer than their "best if used by" expiration dates. To see how long foods typically last, check out StillTasty.com.

Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a computer for three hours - so recycle, recycle, recycle!

Some coffee shops offer a discount when customers use their own reusable coffee mugs rather than paper cups. Starbucks, for example, offers a 10-cent discount when customers use their own reusable mugs or tumblers in company-operated stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Plastic shopping bags are not biodegradable, only about 9 percent of them are recycled, and the ones that aren't leak chemicals into our soil and water supply. You can find resuable grocery bags at RebelGreen.com (and usually in your own grocery store as well.)

EcoTouch.net offers waterless car cleaning and detailing products to get a clean car without using water.

To read the full article, click here.

How About You:
Have you ever watched a trial? What's your favorite "green" tip? Did you do anything to celebrate Earth Day?



31 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Happy birthday to your daughter! I'll have to check out the Still Tasty site. We recycle just about everything. My wife even digs my Hot Tamales boxes out of the trash for recycling.

Velva said...

Happy Earth Day! Happy 16th birthday to your daughter-its definitely a milestone birthday, for her- and you.

Have a great week.

Velva

Old Kitty said...

OH Susan!! Happy birthday to your beautiful daughter! Sixteen!?!? WOW!!!

Awww and Happy Earth Day!! Yes, recycle, recycle, recycle and please stop using plastic, stop wasting food and just be kind to Mother Nature - she does all she can to provide and can really do without us messing up her systems! :-)

Oh ENJOY your day in the courthouse! Blimey!! I only went once as part of a school trip but we begged our teacher to leave cos it was soooooooooooooo boring - I meant the court case we as kids were allowed to watch was so boring! I think it had something to do with insurance fraud! Bleagh!

Hope yours will be more exciting! Take care
x

DEZMOND said...

happy B-day to your daughter and to mother Earth!

Sharon K. Mayhew said...

I hope Jillian is having an awesome day!

I've never seen a trial. This will be great research for some future novel for you. :)

We recycle: paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminium, glass bottles, tin cans, and batteries. (I don't know where we are supposed to take the batteries, so I have a huge box of old batteries in the garage.

Robyn Campbell said...

Happy birthday to your lovely daughter. (I know she must be lovely. She's your daughter.) The trial sounds bodacious.

Recycling is the only way to go these days. :-)

Heading over to StillTasty,com. :-)

Brian's Home Blog said...

Happy Birthday to your daughter!!! We are pretty green here, but I still can't believemI forgot Earth Day, and I'm such a big fan!

Trisha said...

I very rarely throw food out. If it's got visible mould, I throw it out. If it smells bad, I throw it out. But usually I've already used up my food before it gets to that point!

Happy b'day toy our eldest! and have fun on the field trip :)

I did jury duty once, so I've had a glimpse of the Australian system at least.

Nas said...

Happy Earth Day! Happy 16th birthday to your daughter.

Go Green!

Jemi Fraser said...

Hope your daughter has an awesome 16th birthday!!

Tim Horton's does the same 10 cent discount for using your own mug here in Canada.

It's nice to see almost everyone using reusable bags when we go to the grocery stores now. I rarely see anyone using a plastic bag!

Carol Riggs said...

Happy sweet 16 to your daughter! I've never seen an actual trial either. As far as Earth Day type of stuff, here in Oregon we can bring cloth bags into stores and they'll give us 5 cents credit for each one used, instead of using the plastic bags. Nice. Weird!--never heard about cleaning cars w/o water. Will have to check that out. :)

Carolina M. Valdez Schneider said...

Great tips, Susan! And happy happy birthday to your daughter! Very exciting age.

Leslie S. Rose said...

Happy Birthday to your daughter. I'm blown away by the aluminum can tip. I've gone to all reusable grocery bags and our family goal is to fill the recycle can every week and take two weeks to fill the garbage can. Make sure you turn your cell off tomorrow, those bailiffs are scary.

Romance Book Haven said...

Wishing for a fantastic sixteenth birthday for your daughter!

Kelly Polark said...

Happy birthday to your daughter!

We are pretty earth friendly in our house mostly because it saves money! We recycle, use cloth napkins, changed many of our appliances to high efficiency, use the greener light bulbs, and I use reusable grocery bags (they are sturdier!). Go Greener Earth!

Shelley Sly said...

That field trip sounds like so much fun! :) I'd love to watch a trial.

Happy Birthday to your daughter, too!

Talli Roland said...

Happy birthday to your daughter, and those are some great tips. My husband is constantly telling me not to worry about sell-by dates. I swear, one of these days we'll get food poisoning!

Lenny Lee said...

hi miss susan! happy happy birthday to your daughter! we been going green for a long time. one time one of my brothers got on a jury and i went a couple times. that trial lasted for a whole week and yikes it was boring. it was some rich people suing their decorator guy for not liking the drapes and a bunch of other stuff he did. ack! i hope you could get a exciting one to watch.
...hugs from lenny

Carolyn V said...

I've never really watched a trial before. That is so cool!

For green day, I went to the thrift store. That place is amazing. I bought my daughter a few outfits for only $16. Love recycled clothes!

Theresa Milstein said...

Happy belated birthday to your daughter.

My green tip is to use cotton cloth napkins. Easy to throw in the wash!

Jennifer Shirk said...

Happy Birthday to your daughter!

I use my own bags at the grocery store all the time (they hold more and are easy to carry besides being kind ot the earth)

I love stilltasty.com!

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

Happy belated birthday to your daughter!!

I try to recycle as much as possible whenever I can.

Anonymous said...

Happy belated birthday to your daughter.

Years ago I went on a field trip where we watched a trial. It was interesting.

I try to be as green as possible, but I know I can do more.

Lydia Kang said...

I have never been witness to a trial, but my hubs has and it was crazy!

I compost regularly and recycle. It's not a celebration, but a lifestyle I've adopted and grown used to.

Romance Reader said...

Happy Sixteenth Birthday to your daughter! I remember my sixteenth only three years back!

Riya

Cynthia Chapman Willis said...

Happy birthday to your daughter! And thanks for the green tips. We recycle, use the reusable grocery bags, etc, but I'm always on the lookout for other things I can do.

A.L. Sonnichsen said...

Happy Belated birthday to your daughter! Did you have fun at the trial? Wow, I had no idea recycling one aluminum can could have such an impact! Yay!

Unknown said...

Big fan of taking my own mug to Starbucks. Also finally winning the fight with my wife to give milk 'the smell test' as opposed to just tossing it when the date goes out.

Not sure why some folks think that date means going to make you sick. Nothing is as good as your eyes and nose for determining when a food has gone bad.

Also, your daughter rocks, 'cause all people with April birthdays do. I might be biased. : )

Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day!

Hema P. said...

A very happy, if belated, birthday to your daughter! Hope you and your other daughter had fun watching a live trial.

As far as green tip goes, this is not actually a tip, but recently some nurseries started raising seedling in bio-degradable pots. These pots have two uses in one: easier to plant, since no need to disturb the plant's root, and also no plastic involved! I can't wait for this to become the norm....

LindyLouMac said...

I have always been an active recycler and our local facilities for doing so are very good. Plastic bans are banned in many stores here now. We were also celebrating on the 22nd as it was our Wedding Anniversary. Yes I have served jury service when I lived in the UK.

Carissa said...

Just stumbled on your blog. Love it! I posted about e-readers and writing Green Characters on my blog last week.

So important about the aluminum can thing! I think so many people don't realize how many resources and how much energy it takes to produce new aluminum!

Love your blog BTW, new follower!